JSngry

Except that in literature, novels (and other works) are the "object of the game" in esthetic and commercial terms. I don't think that you can say that about jazz, at least not until relatively recently, when the the decline of regular live work brought the "project" mentality to the fore. Put another way - if all we had of Bird was the studio recordings. we'd know that he was a great player, and a bit of a genius. But we'd know nothing of how much of a genius he was w/o the airshots. The airshots are "happy accidents". There's a lot of other players and situations that have not been the beneficiaries of such accidents, so any look towards jazz recordings being the history of the music must be a tempered one, I think. I'll also say this - when dealing with jazz "history", the differences between "oral" and "written" traditions definitely come into play when it comes to live performances vs recorded ones. The differences have not always been just those of circumstance, either.

Another mild contendah:

Dussy Bassard has one of those "new reissue" LP things on this one: http://www.dustygroove.com/jazzlp5.htm#36887 $8.99, a fine price for some fine music.

Probably old news to many here (and probably ancient news to some more), but I finally got araound to checking out this Chicago organ combo (their 1st Atlantic album, Doin' What We Wanna), and buddy, I dig what I hear. Nothing at all "heavy", but damn does it sound real! No frills, meat and potatoes Soul Jazz that is equal parts Soul & Jazz. Sonny Burke on organ in particular is a gas, and Sonny covington's trumpet work sounds like that of a man who played lots of gigs and was happy doing just that. I see that Frank Gordon recorded with the band later on as well, so there were no slouches in the trumpet chair in this band! The whole album sounds like a damn good club band "caught in the act", so to speak, and that works for me. Anyhow, since I know next to nothing about this band or their albums, any input, discussion, opinions, recs, etc. would be quite welcome. Thank you.

Quote by WHO? And WHEN? Welcome back!

I dug what little bit of Switch that I got to see. It seemed like a 70s version of the episodes of It Takes A Thief (one of my most favoriteist shows of all time, btw) where Fred Astaire played Alexander Monday's old man.

To play devil's advocate, is it possible that you find jazz easier to appreciate on recordings than those other musics simply because you yourself feel a more direct cultural connection to jazz than you do those other musics? Speaking for myself, I know that after playing a few years on the so-called "chitlin' circuit", a lot of records sounded more "immediate" to me than they did before I had the "up close and personal" experience of playing that music in its natural environment. And I suspect that for somebody whose sole/primary music that was, the degree of seperation between recorings and live performance would be even less. I do think that how one reacts to any recording of any music is colored to no small degree by what one brings to the listening experience in terms of life experience with, not just the music itself, but the whole extra-musical "thing" that comes with the music. In other words, a true hillbilly would have no difficulty whatsoever relating to a hillbilly record of a song/artist that he/she was totally unfamiliar with (assuming that the record was of a "good" song done by a "good" singer), whereas folks like us have to "come to it' from the outside. And vice-versa for those of us who relate to jazz and jazz culture vs. those for whom such things are totally foriegn.

Vaughn Monroe Mel Tillis Mel Blanc

Maybe FD's a lurker here. If so, I got something to say to him: SEND ME ALL YOUR PROMOS WHEN YOU'RE DONE WITH THEM!!!

I'd prefer to call Elis...

Chi Coltrane Johnny Thunders Thor

Father Tom Vaughn spooked me away from any and all records by cats like this. Besides, after Fatha Hines, where ya' gonna go?

There was a fine Joseph Jarman album with Geri Allen on Four Star that was originally on a Japanese label. Don't know how "legit" the Four Star release was.

Thanks!

Bobbie Gentry Doug Kershaw Jean-Luc Ponty

Yeah, other than the stamper number business, I had pretty much assumed the rest. But that "OSS" intrigues me. Sure would like to find out what it means! That, and why the "B" is on the A-side, and vice-versa.

Althea Gibson Alvino Rey Billy Jean King

You're welcome. Now, what does it all means, especially "OSS"?

And oh yeah, it's got a deep groove. Which I know don't necessarily mean shit, but hey.

Dead Wax info: An "AT" written perpendicular to the usual matrix writing, as well a similarly perpendicular "A" & "B" which for some wierd reason are on the B and A sides, respectively ST-A #11367 & ST-A #11368 on sides A & B, respectively OSS stereo #081958 followed by a subscript "3" & "4" on sides A & B, respectively That's it.

Phillip Glass Sirhan Sirhan Lulu

Howard Sprague Hobart Dotson Eric Nisenson

Chicken.

I've got a green-label Atlantic original stereo pressing (don't anybody get all ga-ga, I found it in a dusty mom-and-pop back in the 70s). To get to the original gist of the question - did Rudy have a stereo recorder in 1956? That Tom Dowd documentary was on the Sundance channel this morning, and in it. Dowd talks about how Atlantic was recording in/with true stereo before anybody else. I find that claim hard to accept at face value, but not as a generalized statement. Is it possible that Rudy engineered this session at the Atlantic studios, perhaps to get a taste of using a stereo machine, or something like that? Purely speculation, to be sure. Also - my cover has the stereo designation seemingly stamped into the cover in yellow ink. It's obviously an Atlantic-designed logo and such, so is this the method that Atlantic used on their covers early on to designate stereo pressings?

Got to hear The Blueprint Project, which is one of those albums that I'm glad to have heard once, but... Nevertheless, guitarist Eric Hofbauer caught my ear on darn near every piece. A very thoughtful and specific player who seems to be determined to follow his own voice/muse/whatever. He seems to be a player with some things to say that I might want to keep up with as time goes by. Anybody got the skinny on this cat?